6 Content Aggregator Websites That Rock

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Content aggregator websites are certainly something that you’ve run into at least a few times in your life on the web. But which are the best ones out there? What are the secret ingredients for success in the most popular content aggregator websites? In this post, I’m going to showcase 6 different examples of successful content aggregator websites. Then, at the end of the post, I’ll tell you how you can use WP RSS Aggregator to create your very own content aggregator site using WordPress.
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Content aggregator websites are certainly something that you’ve run into at least a few times in your life on the web. But which are the best ones out there? What are the secret ingredients for success in the most popular content aggregator websites?

Don’t worry! I’m here to help.

In this post, I’m going to showcase 6 different examples of successful content aggregator websites. Then, at the end of the post, I’ll tell you how you can use the Aggregator WordPress plugin to create your very own content aggregator website.

What is a Content Aggregator?

Content aggregator websites are sites that don’t produce their original content. Instead, they collect content from other websites around the Internet and “aggregate” it into one easy-to-find location.

While a big neon sign saying “COPYRIGHT THEFT” might have lit up in your mind – content aggregation is anything but. Content aggregator websites benefit both visitors and content creators.

Visitors are happy because they get to view a huge variety of content in one spot. And content creators are happy because, as long as the aggregator website is being respectful and linking to the original source, content creators get to expose their content to a whole new audience.

6 Of The Best Content Aggregators

The following sites are some of the best and most popular examples of successful content aggregator websites. Some span huge categories of topics, others are neat one-page designs, and still more take a niche-specific approach to content curation. This isn’t meant to be in any way exhaustive – I’ve tried to represent a spread of the different directions content aggregator websites have taken in their routes to success.

1. Alltop

AllTop

Founded by startup legend Guy Kawasaki, Alltop is one of the biggest names in content aggregation and deservedly sits in first place on this list.

Alltop pulls in the latest posts from websites on a variety of topics. What’s neat about Alltop is that you can search for specific topics and then view aggregated content from some of the top blogs for that specific topic.

You can also submit your own site to be listed on Alltop, though Alltop is known for being fairly picky about the sites that it accepts.

2. Popurls

PopUrls

Popurls is the site from which Alltop drew its inspiration. Alltop even credits Popurls in the Alltop footer!

With that endorsement, it’s no surprise that Popurls, branded as the “mother of all news aggregators,” sits at #2 on our list.

Popurls pulls in content from various sources on social media, blogs, and news organizations. It’s quite eclectic in curating its content – with my favorite example being BuzzFeed and The New York Times sitting side-by-side. How’s that for contrast?

Popurls

Unlike Alltop, you can’t submit your own website to Popurls, and unlike search engine-based news sites such as Google News and Bing News, or other content aggregators that focus on news articles such as Flipboard, the curated content is drawn only from news sources that Populrs have decided constitute “quality content”. But it’s still a neat example of the power of content aggregation.

3. The Web List

TheWebList

The Web List functions similarly to Popurls in that it’s a one-page content aggregator website that curates original content from a huge variety of sources.

It’s not nearly as popular as Popurls or Alltop. But it’s highly customizable and uses some cool technology. And for that reason, I thought it was a great example of how far you can take content aggregation.

Like Popurls, though, you can’t submit your own site. It only aggregates content from a pre-made set of sources.

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4. WP News Desk

WP News Desk

WP News Desk is a content aggregator website that focuses specifically on WordPress. It automatically pulls in content from a variety of WordPress blogs and companies to display the best content and latest news from the WordPress sphere on the front page.

Rather than needing to visit each blog individually, visitors can just click on individual articles to read the full article at the original source.

Like Alltop, bloggers can submit their own WordPress blog to be considered for inclusion in the news desk.

5. Blog Engage

BlogEngage

Though Blog Engage is starting to fall victim to spammy content, it’s still one of the most popular blog content aggregators out there.

As the spam indicator suggests, Blog Engage’s standards are nowhere near as strict as Alltop, though.

But with that being said, it’s still a good example of how you can create a generalized aggregating website and make it successful.

6. Travel Blogger Community

Travel Blogger Community

Travel Blogger Community is for travel bloggers what WP News Desk is for WordPress. That is, Travel Blogger Community aggregates content from travel bloggers all around the world in one accessible place.

Just like Alltop and WP News Desk, Bloggers can submit their own site to the community to get their content featured on the aggregator.

How to Create Your Own Content Aggregator Website With WordPress

Firstly, you’re going to need a domain name, Once you’ve picked and registered it, pick a hosting provider. There are a lot of options out there but we recommend two specific hosts for content aggregator sites.

Why these two? Because we’ve seen a lot of WP RSS Aggregator’s customers work with them successfully in the past and they’ve been the most reliable options at an affordable price.

If you’re not very limited by budget, we recommend WP Engine’s Startup hosting plan for content aggregators. We’ve even collaborated with WP Engine to get you 4 months off their annual plans!

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For a cheaper option that still provides good hosting and everything you might need to start your content aggregator website, we recommend Bluehost. They are trusted by millions of people around the world to run everything from basic blogs to big news sites.

Now that the domain and hosting are settled, we get to the content part.

Most content aggregators are powered by the magic of RSS. So to create your own content aggregator website, you’ll need a tool with the functionality to complete at least one of the following actions:

  • Import RSS feeds as headline links (for something like Popurls, The Web List, or Reddit)
  • Import RSS feeds as actual WordPress posts (for something like WP News Desk or Travel Blogger Community)

To accomplish both methods, we recommend the free WP RSS Aggregator plugin. You can also opt for some of its premium add-ons, depending on the specific type of content aggregator that you want to create.

WP RSS Aggregator

WP RSS Aggregator gives you the basic content aggregator tools to allow you to import headlines in a one-page design. This enables you to create basic feeds for the sites that you want to aggregate content from.

Then, you can bring in those feeds anywhere in your content using a simple shortcode.

Creating a More Advanced Content Aggregator Website

If you want to create a more full-featured content aggregator website, you’re going to want the ability to actually import RSS feed items as full WordPress posts on your site.

WP RSS Aggregator can help you achieve this!

It gives you the flexibility of pulling in excerpts and featured images, assigning categories, and more.

For this use, you’ll need at least the premium Feed to Post add-on for WP RSS Aggregator. Depending on the level of curation that you want to apply to your content aggregator, you might also want to pick up the Keyword Filtering add-on as well.

If you’re a bit confused about how you can actually use WP RSS Aggregator to create your aggregator website, Mark wrote a full tutorial on exactly how to get up and running with the plugin.

Aggregate Visual Content Through Instagram

While the websites discussed in this article focus mostly on aggregated written content, the same can be done using visual media such as photography and video.

Popurls does this by importing posts from websites such as YouTube, Flickr, and 500px. But what if I told you you could aggregate tagged photos on Instagram?

Spotlight lets you do just that.

The free version of the plugin displays your Personal or Business Instagram feed. By upgrading to Spotlight PRO, however, you can also import posts by hashtag from all over Instagram.

The PRO version lets you filter and moderate your feed, ensuring that you have full control over your feed. In addition to this, you can also link specific Instagram posts to blog posts, products, and any custom URL.

The plugin is extremely intuitive and comes with a live preview editor. This means you can edit the look and feel of your feed and see a real-time preview right in your WordPress dashboard.

Wrapping Things Up

For webmasters and influencers, content aggregator websites offer a chance to get more readers and exposure and boost SEO. And for users and subscribers, content aggregators help readers find new and interesting content.

But you don’t need to be a reader or a third-party webmaster to work with content aggregator websites – you can also jump into the fray yourself and quickly create your own content aggregator website using WP RSS Aggregator and Spotlight.

Now over to you – did I miss an awesome aggregator that you think is worthy of some love? Let us know in the comments so everyone can check it out.

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Colin Newcomer

Colin has been using WordPress for over a decade and is on a quest to test all 60,000+ plugins at WordPress.org. He has been a Writer and Product Review Expert for WP Mayor since 2017, testing well over 150 products and services throughout that time.

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49 Responses

  1. I want to shift my site from blogger to wordpress and i have no idea about it that after shift on wordpress its post links same with images or not
    Please guide me

  2. Decent list but I wonder why you neglected to mention the most popular site of them all, The Drudge Report?

  3. This is a good list. I think everyone will be inspired by this list. I am also thinking to create a news aggregate website about the current situation like Coronavirus update. Where everyone will find all the news about Coronavirus.
    Thank you

  4. Thank you for sharing information, theafrica.co.za provide you the travel news across south africa. You can also submit your site in theafrica.co.za

  5. Hello, a very informative and helpful article. I am using a few of these websites while many are new to know. Thank you for sharing the information.

  6. Content Agrregator website is very few, developers need to think about this as well. because these websites give good content, links and all good way for SEO.

  7. Hi, let me offer you the GLONAAD news aggregator.
    It is completely free and you don’t have to register to use it.

  8. I Will like to add DistilPost to the discussion. DistilPost is a modern news aggregator that curates news from worldwide media websites as well as Twitter, Instagram and Youtube. You get the complete picture of the entire story with tweets and related Youtube videos.

  9. Hi, I wanted to update to this list The Bloggers Digest . This is a free aggregator and and fun blog reading tool that my husband and I developed. Anyone can submit their blogs to it, there is never any fee. There is a random blog generator as well that helps connect people to new content.

    Of course, I love all the ones you mentioned in the article as well!

  10. Great list of aggregators – in my experience, pick a few that you like and stick with those. Build up your profiles, participate in the community etc.

    Good stuff!

  11. I used SemanticJuice to create my News in Views aggregation website. It focuses on diversity of sources, not popularity.

  12. Thank you for these tips 🙂
    If you are looking for social content feed you can also check these guys :

  13. I run a Healthy Sweeteners blog. We are constantly publishing new content. Feel free to use any of our Content the only thing I ask is you link back to www.healthysweeteners.com

  14. Amazing tips for aggregators! When I got this article I stop searching for more. Thanks for sharing such incredible story with us.

  15. Hi there, great info ….. just have some questions though with regards to setting up a site based on this article.

    (1.) What usually are the legal requirements needed for setting up a site like this? Does it need to be registered as a business? What are the legal pages needed? (*i.e. usage policy, terms of service, privacy policy, f.a.q., etc.)

    (2.) Can i create a separate section within the site that will include full news articles that are not aggregate content?

    (3.) Can i put ads inside the aggregate news site (*side bar, top bar, near the footer, etc.), and do those ads need some type of legal approval or permission (*from the source(s) of content) to run?

    1. Hey Alvin, here’s my take on this, but I’m not a lawyer so don’t take this as be all and end all.

      1. Your site should always have some privacy policy and terms of use, as well as a contact form. As for legal requirements of sharing content from other sources – many sites provide their RSS feed for free while some others prohibit the sharing of their content on other sites. So long as you credit the original source and don’t steal the content to put it in your name, most sources are happy to see their content shared elsewhere.

      2. Yes, of course. That’s actually encouraged. Google also likes to see original content so your rankings will improve with that.

      3. Unless some source explicitly states that you cannot run ads on their posts no matter where they’re shared, which I haven’t personally come across before, you’re free to do whatever you want with your site. You can even try something like this:

  16. Interesting list of aggregators.I like the concept behind aggregators and bookmarking sites like Folkd, Notcy, StumbleUpon, Linkteresting,Digg.

  17. Hey very nice article and very informative. It helps me for promoting blogs and articles. Thanks a lot, Colin Newcomer. I am expecting some more informative blogs from your end.

    1. Hey Teddy, aggregating content means your site is getting fresh and relevant content about your website’s niche. It is always good to have fresh and relevant content on your site, so having that done automatically will boost your SEO.

      It’s also recommended to have a mix of original content and aggregated content, search engines such as Google like that.

      With a plugin like WP RSS Aggregator you can import related content and publish it automatically, or even import posts as drafts then curate them, even possibly editing parts of them. You can easily credit the original source for all imported content to make sure everyone gets the credit they deserve. Or, of you wish, you can use the content spinning integrations to create original content on the fly.

    1. Hi Lily, Blogorama looks interesting at first glance but it has very few sales. Have you tried it out?

  18. Is it possible to set up a news aggregator site such as newsnow.co.UK using WordPress? How do l go about it? I need a simple guide.
    Dan

    1. Hey Daniel, yes it will mostly be possible. Have a look at this tutorial – it’s specific to Reddit as a source, but the idea and implementation are the same for any other type of source:

      https://wpmayor.com/how-to-add-reddit-feeds-to-your-wordpress-site/

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